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Mossad gauges US reaction to Iran strike

Tel Aviv

THE head of Israel's foreign intelligence service made a secret trip to Washington this month to gauge the likely US reaction to a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The content of Mossad chief Tamir Pardo's discussion with his American counterparts has been revealed in a Newsweek article titled ''Obama's Dangerous Game With Iran''.

Unnamed US officials claim that Mr Pardo's line of questioning to David Petraeus, the CIA chief, ran: ''What is our [US] posture on Iran? Are we ready to bomb? Would we [do so later]? What does it mean if [Israel] does it anyway?''

Mr Petraeus told a Senate select committee in a public hearing last month that he had met Mr Pardo to discuss Israel's growing concern over Iran's nuclear aspirations. When asked if Israel intended to strike, James Clapper, the director of US national intelligence, said he would prefer to answer the question behind closed doors.

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US sources quoted in the Newsweek report added that Israel had refused to share with the US a ''significant'' amount of intelligence regarding its military preparations. Israeli officials refused to respond to the article.

According to Yehuda Ben Meir, a former Israeli deputy foreign minister, full US backing was by no means a prerequisite for an Israeli strike. ''It's a matter of degrees of grey,'' he said.